The Internet and Small Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMES) in Jordan

Authors: Sattam Allahawiah, Haroon Altarawneh, Sameer Alamro

Abstract:

Because of its global reach, reduction of time restraints, and ability to reduce costs and increase sales, use of the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW), and related technologies can be a competitive tool in the arsenal of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Countries the world over are interested in the successful adoption of the Internet by SMEs. Because a vast majority of jobs come from that sector, greater financial success of SMEs translates into greater job growth and, subsequently, higher tax revenue to the government. This research investigated the level of Internet usage for business solutions by small and medium enterprises in Jordan. Through the survey of a random sample of 100 firms with less than 500 employees and from data obtained from this survey that formed the basis for our study, we found that a majority of respondents use the Internet in business activities , the adoption of the Internet as a business tool is limited to a brochure where Web site which primarily provides one way. As such, there wasn't interactive information about the company and its products and services.

Keywords: Internet, SMEs, e-commerce, website, e-business, IT.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1054893

References:

[1] Bui T.X., Sankaran S. and Sebastian I.M. 2003: A framework for measuring national e-readiness, Int. J. Electronic Business, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 3-22.
[2] Gregory, M. (2003). SME job engine drives Canadian employment growth. Small Business Research, 3, 1-6. www.bmo.com/economic/special/sbr3.pdf
[3] Pauline Ratnasingam.(2002), Perceived versus Realized Benefits in Ecommerce Adoption. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, Vol.7, no.2, December 2002: 57-68
[4] Doukidis, G., Poulymenakou, A., Georgopoulos N., & Motsios Th. (2001) E- Commerce in Large Greek Enterprises:Issues and Prospects, EASE (Confederation of CEOs of Greek Enterprises), (In Greek).
[5] Shin, N. 2001. Strategies for competitive advantage in electronic commerce. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 2, No.4, pp. 34-41.
[6] Chau, S. & Pedersen, S.G. (2000). Small is Beautiful: The Emergence of New Micro Business Utilising Electronic Commerce, Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Information Systems 2000, pp. 1-8, Brisbane, Australia, 2000.
[7] Scupola, A. (2003),"The Adoption of Internet Commerce by SMEs in the South of Italy: An Environmental, Technological and Organizational Perspective," Journal of Global Information Technology Management, Vol. 6, No.1, pp. 51-71.
[8] Luisa Piris, Guy Fitzgerald and Alan Serrano. (2005) Strategic Motivators and Expected Benefits from E-commerce in traditional Organizations.
[9] Syed Shah Alam, A. Ali Khatibi, Hishamuddin Bin Ismail and Ismail Ahmad (2005).Perceived Benefits of E-Commerce Adoption in the Electronic Manufacturing Companies in Malaysia, Journal of Social Sciences 1 (3): 188-193
[10] Cloete, E., S. Courtney, and J. Fintz (2002). "Small Businesses- Acceptance and Adoption of E-Commerce in the Western-Cape Province of South-Africa." Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries 10(4), 1-13.
[11] Currie, W. 2000, The global information society, Wiley, Chichester.du Plessis, M. and Boon, J. A. 2004. Knowledge Management in eBusiness and Customer Relationship Management: South African Case Study Findings, International Journal of Information Management, 24, 73-86.
[12] Mahesha Kapurubandara, and Robyn Lawson (2006) Barriers to Adopting ICT and e-commerce with SMEs in Developing Countries: An Exploratory study in Sri Lanka.
[13] Barua, A; Konana, P., Whinston, A.B., and Yin, F. 2001. Driving ebusiness excellence, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2001, pp. 36-44.
[14] Chan, S., and Davis, T. 2000. Partnering on extranets for strategic ddvantage. Information Systems Management, Vol. 17, No 1, pp. 58- 64.
[15] Akkeren J, Cavaye A, (1999). Factors Affecting the Adoption of Ecommerce Technologies by Small Business in Australia - An Empirical Study. (Available:www.acs.org.au/act/events/io1999/akkern.html.).
[16] Ghobadian, A. and Gallear, D.N. (1996), ``Total quality management in SME-s--, Omega, Vol. 24 No. 1, February, pp. 83-106.